


the ground opens up to swallow me

by GStK



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Alternative Universe - Royalty, F/F, Schizophrenia-Spectrum Character, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:00:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26436064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GStK/pseuds/GStK
Summary: we sit under dark trees with our knees bunched up beneath our dresses, counting the miles on our palms.
Relationships: Helel ben Sahar/Helel ben Shalem (Granblue Fantasy)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	the ground opens up to swallow me

sahar cannot braid her own hair.

this is a helplessness born out of desire. she has long and forever remembered the feeling of long claws raking through her platinum tresses. she tells stories of a father who came to her chambers and delicately arranged her plait for the morning. the king never fails to arrive in these tales, and when he is late, he is always full of apologies.

no, no. it was never a slave who put up her hair. what a silly idea. a king who cannot be bothered to visit his firstborn and give her his touch of beauty -- why, he would not be much of a king at all, would he? shalem is so full of these silly ideas.

shalem is the one who braids her hair now. shalem’s company is never suffered in silence. each morning, her wife could never be happier to see her. up goes the smile. down comes the needle and thread. up towers the long, lanky form of her queen consort, soul stretched far too thin over the expanse of her body. down descends the hands that settle on shalem’s shoulders, welcoming her in touch, mind, utter desperation.

then, the stories.

sahar’s father was a dragon. or did he become a dragon? no. yes. it is the story of the princess and the frog told in reverse. a time upon once, sahar’s father became a dragon with true love’s kiss. before that, he was found in a rotting castle by sahar’s human mother, the fairest queen in the land. and before that, he was a prince drowning in the quiet, tears his only company. and before all of that, he…

… she falters. shalem glances away from the blue and red eruption of the sky. her fingers have split sahar’s hair into a trio. the half-completed braid dangles upon the precipice of her back.

“where did your father come from?” shalem prods. she refuses to jump over that edge. she tears her eyes away from the inviting valley of flesh. sahar is wearing her eyes plaintively and squeezing her jade bracelet between her fingers.

“he never came,” sahar tells her. “he only _be_ came. there was nothing before my father. when he was born, the world blinked into existence.”

and who is shalem to challenge that idea? she’s had thirty years and a lifetime of learning to become queen. she has memories of her own parents: her mother queen, her father king consort. comparing skin and skin after long days in the sun, smiling triumphantly when she came away darker than either of them. classes in magic. in spears. in morals, in judgement, in walking the spirit worlds during her dreams. she has thousands of subjects and a religion that goes back millennia.

perhaps they were all invented in the instant after sahar’s father came to be. a man needs a world to conquer. a dragon needs a kiss to escape the chains of his bondage.

with toes dipped into the absence of sound, sahar affirms her beliefs. shalem knows her spirit is settled when she smiles again. they both look out upon the sunrise. “then i became, too. i was created to serve my father’s needs. my hair grew this long so he could have something to braid. my skin turned this pale so he might shield me from the light with his wings.”

yet she’s been turning darker lately, shalem notes. compared to herself, compared to the people of her kingdom, sahar is as bright as the sun itself. in sahar’s kingdom -- can it be called a kingdom? -- the nights are long. the light is weak. sahar belongs to her, now, and in this place, the light is stark. she’s more tan than she was. shalem has already warned the slaves to keep their mouths sealed. if she learns that she is growing dark, sahar will cry.

she continues to talk, ignorant of her fate. “my father needed an alliance, so i was wed to you. my father needed us to tie the world together, so i fell in love with you.” sahar tilts her head back, beaming up at shalem. shalem returns the smile coyly.

“is that the only reason, my queen?” she asks. she surrenders a hand from the plaiting to drift it down plains of moonskin. sahar thinks her skin is perfect. shalem can feel the scars, the stretch marks; she can see the freckling across shoulders and hips.

sahar laughs. “my reasons and my love have only grown as time goes by. how many years is it now, shalem?”

“just one.”

“so long!” sahar exclaims. she rocks back on her stool. her lake-patterned eyes peer into the copper mirror along the wall. it catches the sun rays and scatters a dusting of the colour spirits along the floor. “perhaps you feel it is no time at all, my queen. you are like an aged rose!”

shalem pinches her ear, just above the space in her cartilage where her skin is being prepped for earrings. sahar gives a soft cry. “are you calling me old?”

“ow! you are twice my age! please!”

shalem releases her. sahar doubles forward and shalem barely rescues the braid-in-progress. sahar continues to lean into herself, chest upon her knees. shalem takes this time to finish the plaiting, tying the golden hair off with a cloth kissed by vermilion.

“my father needs you and i both,” sahar whispers. it is so quiet, shalem can just barely hear her. she presses an ear to sahar’s back and feels the vibrations of the words. “he tells me this all the time. i know he has left this world, but i can hear him. he has high expectations for us." 

shalem is unsure if she married a prophet or a woman cursed by delusion.

she is queen, but sahar is not. sahar was betrothed and given to her as a bargaining chip. the slaves around the palace call her a scryer worth her weight in precious metals. they call her father a dragon of a man. his lands have been eviscerated by the droughts. the few people who remain rallied to him, pledge allegiance as his people, hang on by the thread of his connection to shalem. she is thirty years old and sahar is seventeen. her bride is a liability that shalem's taken on, a short stick with little promise. there is desire when she sees the lithe legs beneath cotton robes. there is a delicacy there she wants to protect, a mind broken by eyes to the future -- or just far too long spent far too alone.

a queen consort who will shatter further if her self-truths are defied. she will never be able to govern. she will not produce an heir. her father's turned her into an icon of his religion. it could sweep her citizens up. it could sever their ties to the spirit worlds.

it doesn’t matter.

"is that what you want?" shalem asks against sahar's white back. sahar shudders underneath her attention, her breath. "i could give you anything." she wants to give her bride everything. this is not enthralling by an avatar of god. this is not blind devotion and this is not religious fervour. (will her people be happy? will her parents, her ancestors banish her to the plane of nightmares forever?)

she presses a kiss to the root of sahar’s spine.

"i want to spread his words of wisdom and create a heaven to which he can return.”

it doesn't matter,

because this is what happens when you see a sunspot step out in front of you, offered as a token from a man whose image you've already scrubbed out of your mind. because she has a gentle smile that's cursed shalem from the start.

“yes. let’s.”


End file.
